Paper Migration

compiled by Teresa Martin Klaiber
January 2011

People migrate for many reasons. Genealogists follow the migrations. When people migrate their "stuff" migrates with them. During the ten years that we had an established antique shop in the heart of Ohio, we often joked that items purchased on the East Coast eventually ended up in California where high end dealers sold the item back to New York.

I sat in the middle of the floor of my office the other day with stacks of original source materials including old diaries, ledgers and letters around me and thought about those analogies and what I was guilty of when we moved back to our beloved Eastern Kentucky from Ohio.

As Family Lineage Investigations Antiques & Genealogy, I purchased many ledgers and documents at auctions. My intent was to publish the materials and make them more accessible to everyone. It was a good plan and some were published. I also purchased many items from other states and donated them to respective libraries in the area where the items originated rather than sell them in our shop.

Good intentions aside, what actually happened to much of the Ohio materials could have made them less available or worse - lost.

Several years ago, I realized the materials just were not "at home" in Eastern Kentucky. I called the librarian for the Guernsey Chapter OGS who drove to Eastern Kentucky and retrieved a car load of original source ledgers for that county. They are now safely housed in their home county and available in a logical place for researchers to find them. Why didn't I do that before I moved? Moving is emotional and hurried and time slips by quickly. So I felt relieved that the items were returned and smug that they had not been scattered around the country or worse tossed by some uncaring person.

Over a period of time, I have donated other original source items found in my Eastern Kentucky office to various places. Mind you my office is not huge. I think it is homey. My sons shake their heads calling me that horrible name "pack rat". I take offense arguing that I am organized and everything has purpose. Or rather I did until that moment when I discovered a storage box that left me sitting on the floor with those wonderful items scattered around me.

I have spent the last several days making contacts and can report that they are migrating yet again but this time home. I hope they enjoyed their vacation in Eastern Kentucky.

Migration of documents is a problem that every genealogical researcher faces. It reminds me of the preparation of my book New Concord 1833-1902. A small article appeared in the local paper which noted that we could not find any volume of council minutes prior to 1900. Within a week I had a letter from George L. Carlos in Winter Haven, Florida. He wrote "I was born in New Concord and served the village for many years...I was a council member when the old Town Hall was torn down ...I retrieved from the city dump the council minutes...I have carried these with me for many years over half the country but it is time for them to go home." The ledger did come home and the original is safely archived at Muskingum University and extracted in my publication which is now available digitally.

As our new Eastern Kentucky home was in the midst of log raising, I was busy cleaning and organizing the estate of my father-in-law. Their home was small and never cluttered but something was jammed behind the head board of a bed. I was startled and excited when I pulled out a ledger. That ledger had migrated from the Boyd County Courthouse. I can only speculate how it made it to our rural farm but it is now extracted and published for all to use: Boyd County, Kentucky 1902 Tax Journal. While it is not a wealth of information it does verify that a person resided in the county and what district they were in during 1902. Mind you the book did not travel far but could easily have been lost for future generations.

In May 2010 I wrote about the Garrett Chapel United Methodist Church Records from Lawrence County, Kentucky which also migrated but luckily had been copied. When I wrote that blog I said "I stand firm that records belong where they were created in a safe environment for historical purposes."

Even after the reality that I had tucked away materials that needed to go home, I still feel that way. I have rectified my error and encourage everyone to be vigilant and make sure those wonderful jewels are placed where they can easily be utilized. I encourage everyone to enjoy regular visits to antique shops and auctions and help these items find their way home.

stock illustration, Image zoo thank you fotosearch.com

Forget Me Not

compiled by Teresa Martin Klaiber
January 2011

No better time to write about historical quilts than when the temperatures dip to single digits across the United States. I have written about signature quilts and utilized them as examples in many genealogical speeches throughout the years.

Some of my most treasured documentation comes, not from courthouse paper sources, but rather from the items that surround me. My beautiful blue garnet ring bears the inscription date that my great grandparents were engaged. I carefully dust a tiny porcelain bride and groom from 1918 that sat on top of the cake when my grandparents were married. Quilts tell stories as well.

The documented provenance of an artifact is as important to a genealogist as it is to any archaeologist or antique auctioneer. Lose the link in the provenance of a bible, for example, and we lose a little more of our personal history. Elizabeth Shown Mills provides family historians and genealogists a template to cite our source, including the provenance in Evidence Explained [page 105]. While many provide footnotes and sources for books and documents, I rarely see artifacts having a full citation.

One blustery, cold November day in 1996 while visiting Martha Klaiber Cox [1908-2005] in Catlettsburg, Boyd County, Kentucky, she pulled out a fragile quilt from beneath many others quilted by her mother, Julina Leota Sexton Horton Klaiber.

As Aunt Martha lovingly spread the quilt on the bed I could see the deterioration, especially of the early silk materials which is commonplace in crazy quilts. She told me that either her mother Julina [1877-1978] or her grandmother, Julina McCormack Sexton [1836-1914] had pieced the quilt. The quilt simply has initials but Martha explained they were initials of friends and family that lived on or around Garner, Boyd County, Kentucky.

It is possible that both Julina's worked on the beautiful stitches.

The initials with probable names:

AJS
AS = Anne [Caldwell] Sexton [1856-1892]
ASS
BS = Bertha Sexton [1888-1890 d/o James & Missouri]
BW
CE = Cora Enyart [d/o Wm F. & Sarah Lett Enyart]
DWM
DM = Dimma Mayhew [1867-1895]
DS
EHS = Elisha H. Sexton [1856-1946]
EWS = Edward Sexton [possibly 1880-1892 s/o LD & Miriam]
GMH
GWM
HB
HPS = Henry Powell Sexton II [ 1874-1963]
HS
JFR = James Franklin Reeves [1828-1921 1st cousin of Julina McCormack Sexton]
JH
JLR = Julina L. Reece [1891-1893 d/o D. W. and Martha E. Sexton Reece]
JM
JMc
JMS = James McClelland Sexton [1865-1941]
JS = Julina Sexton [1877-1978]
LB
LDS =Lorenzo Dow Sexton [1858-1949]
MFS = Miriam Frances [McKnight] Sexton [1861-1931]
MHS = Missouri Haines Sexton
MLS =Marcus Lindsey Sexton [1857-1880]
MM
MS =
NS = Nelson Sexton
OMH
RC
TMS = Telitha nee May Sexton [1862-1945]
WCS
WDR
WH
WVS =William Vincent Sexton [1861-1936]
WW

At 88 years of age, Martha was generous and gave me the quilt that day. Having family of her own, I knew that I was meant to be the guardian of the quilt for just a short time and would some day return the quilt to her branch of the family.

I purchased a large textile acid free box and tissue and lovingly cared for the quilt from November 1996 until the summer of 2009. In 2009 the quilt was given to Freda Cox Tackett, daughter of Martha to deliver to Martha's grand daughter Tina Lynn Tackett Toth. Another generation can now cherish the history of this beautiful artifact.

My own home has many reminders of both Julina's including several pieced quilts by Julina Sexton Klaiber. She walks with me in spirit as I see the spring daffodils she planted many years ago. In February 1962, nicknamed Lade, she wrote:

"This is my request - Lade Klaiber. One thing I am - if I should pass away I do want you all to be good to each other and devide {sic} the dishes and quilts and the other things in the house if you want them and the pictures take care of them and each one will know what yours that you gave me. And one thing please take care of the flowers for I did love them and hope all will be happy and live for Jesus."

In 1996 James and Teresa Martin Klaiber divided some of the daffodil bulbs sharing them with others within the neighborhood. On Memorial Day 1997 we donated bulbs in Julina Leota Sexton Horton Klaiber's name to a daffodil project in Greendale, Wisconsin as part of a program for Birds & Blooms.

Forget Me Not

"On the road again - Goin' places that I've never been"

compiled by Teresa Martin Klaiber
January 2011

Willie Nelson can't wait to get on the road again but I am not sure our ancestors enjoyed the road as much as he does.

Our early Eastern Kentucky roads were built and maintained by the county with all able bodied males over 15 required to work on them. There were a few exceptions. Males over fifty were exempt as were ministers of the gospel. The county order books are a roll call for these men to come do their duty.

The first step for a new road was to approach the county court and request an opening or possibly change the path of an existing road. Three gentleman would then be appointed to view and report back the best possible route. Once the road was approved hands in the vicinity were called to do the work.

The better roads would be laid with crushed rock which had to be hauled from a local quarry or even further if one was not close. The rock was crushed by manual labor prior to the invention of awkward rock crushers. They used a method known as Macadam which was simply layered crushed stone. While the process was introduced in 1820 it did not arrive in Kentucky until after 1850 and then only to roads linking larger towns. Rock was not to be over 6 ounces in weight and no larger than what could pass through a two inch ring according to Wikipedia. Labor intensive and grueling work.

In reality most of the local roads of Eastern Kentucky were mud and muck. Kentucky did not have a state highway commission until 1912.

One of my favorite books in my office collection is a reprint of Tour Book The Midland Trail compiled for the National Midland Trail Association in 1916. The Kentucky West-Bound Log begins on page 16. When describing Olive Hill, in Carter County, Kentucky you find the following description:

"From Olive Hill there may be a detour via Soldier which is easier than the road logged via Upper Tygert...the next ten miles is really bad road, altho much better in summer than in spring, ...it is well not to try to drive too fast, for taking it easily the distance may be made in a short time without undue strain on either car or driver."

My father describes the roads of our area in 1950 as:

"...primitive. What there were simply followed the old paths and cow trials...There were only two paved main roads, US 60 toward Lexington and US 23, wandering laboriously south into the real mountain counties. The county roads were graveled, when it was available, and any road off these could at times be impassible. [Never A Ho Hum Day, John G. Martin, page 20]

The following picture from Magoffin County is estimated to have been taken between 1916 and 1925.

John Shouse Martin Collection

The Big Sandy Road was later marked as US #23. The picture below states "3 miles from Catlettsburg". Looking at the picture the family is coming north toward Catlettsburg.

John Shouse Martin Collection, Sandy River Road, 1917

It never ceases to amaze me how our pioneer ancestors migrated from place to place. There seems to be a special need for many of us to be "On the road again..."

"Fill er Up" Indian Oil Company

compiled by Teresa Martin Klaiber
January 2011

In today's "modern" world, with the click of the mouse, a search for Indian Oil Company gets you thousands of hits and wiki descriptions of a large corporation based in India.

But in the early years of "modern" gasoline stations in the United States Indian Oil Company was well known in the Midwest and Eastern Kentucky.

Indian Oil Company started out as Indian Asphalt Company and in 1905 set up operations in Georgetown, Kentucky. One of their products was Bluegrass axle grease. A year later they changed their name to Indian Oil Company and built a Refining company based out of Lawrenceburg, Illinois. In 1909 they purchased Havoline Oil Company and the Havoline name quickly became a well known name throughout our area.

An excellent web site developed by Jim Hinds gives a detailed time line of the company. He should be commended for his efforts to fetter out the details and history for this company.

The company growth was in leaps and bounds. One of the many traveling salesmen for Indian Oil Company was John Shouse Martin who resided in Ashland, Kentucky. He joined the company during World War I and continued to work for Indian Oil Company until it was purchased by Texaco in early 1931. Texaco received all rights to the manufacturing process of Havoline motor oil at that time.

The company maintained an office on East Front and 28th Street in Ashland as well as a plant [shown in picture above] with J. W. Johnson as manager.

Besides Martin, L. F. Carmine of Lexington and C. F. Leslie of Huntington all were let go by Texaco in 1931 and quickly announced in the Ashland newspaper that they were now working for Valvoline Oil Company of Cincinnati. Lawrence M. Kelly took over the southern Ohio territory for Texaco that had been held by J. S. Martin.

Martin took many photographs in his travels and his collection includes this picture of the first Indian Station in Ashland, Kentucky. This may be the station listed in the 1924 city directory at 1000 East Winchester. The station was operated by J. W. Johnson.

The first gasoline stations in the United States were built between 1905 and 1907. They were known as "filling stations", a term I heard even in the mid 1950's. By 1929 there were two Indian gasoline stations in Ashland, Kentucky. One at 2500 Winchester Avenue operated by R. D. Gardner and another at 13th and Lexington operated by Curtis Murphy.

From horse and buggy to the gasoline age we are now moving into yet another "modern" world and I am sure we will hear much more about it in 2011. The price of gasoline is skyrocketing. But let me savor for just a moment more, full service fill ups with my windows wiped to a sparkle.

Come All You Tender Hearted

compiled by Teresa Martin Klaiber
December 2010

By now all my readers should be aware of my love of ballads and how they can be used in genealogy and history.

My families genealogy includes the sad story of Floyd Alson McCormack [1836-1906] and wife Francis Jane Ratliff McCormack's two daughters deaths in Carter County,Kentucky..

A few years ago a family cousin, Robert McCormack, asked if I knew of a ballad sang by the Stanly Brothers. I immediately sent him the copy from Ballad Makin in the Mountains of Kentucky by Jean Thomas. What is interesting about her publication is that she says the ballad "came to Jilson Setters' ears..." It did not say that Jilson Setters aka William Day was the author.

Over the years Robert has collected several versions of the ballad and now has a web page that is a true delight. Simply titled The Fire Tragedy, I am sure my readers will enjoy it.

As the snow storm moves into Eastern Kentucky, I am scanning McCormack items in my collection and refreshing my memory concerning the ballad. Among my items is a copy of the Carter County Herald, Olive Hill, Kentucky, dated 26 October 1922. The article is titled "A Sad Recollection."

This article has a few inconsistencies and states that Mrs. Francis McCormick was a widow residing in Flat Woods, Carter County and suffered from rheumatism. After putting her little girls to bed, she went to the neighbor's house to get some liniment and while there the house caught fire and burned. This article states the the affair happened in 1867.

The newspaper version follows:

Come all ye tender hearted
Your attention I will call;
I'll tell you how it started,
Come listen one and all.
On Wednesday night there was a light
Saw shining on the hill;
A mother ran with all her might,
While everything was still.
Two little girls had gone to bed,
While mother ached with pain;
"I'll get some liniment," she said,
"And soon return again."
Don't stay too long, dear mother,
For well be lonesome here,"
And then mother might have seen
Them drop a silent tear.
She went into a neighbor's house,
Some hundred yards away,
Twas there she sat and talked with them
Bud did not mean to stay.
They hear a noise life thunder
As the flames began to roar;
Ain't it an awful wonder
They never went to the door?
Time passed on much longer,
But still she did not go;
Ain't it an amazing wonder
The mother acted so?
When she started home again
Her house was in a flame;
She cried, "My babies, you're gone,
I am the one to blame."
She burst the door asunder
The flames rolled over her head.
She cried aloud, "No wonder."
She found her babies dead.
The little ones had gone to sleep
Before their mother came.
Oh how still they slept,
Wrapped in the red hot flame.
Their little bones lay on the ground,
They both lay face to face,
Their arms they were entwined around
Each other they did embrace.
Don't grieve for them, dear mother,
For they are now at res,
Ain't it an amazing wonder
How soon they both were blessed?
If they had said with you, ma,
Till they had both grown old,
They could not have purchased what they have
Though they had a world of gold.
We know they are gone from you, ma,
It's their eternal gain;
They're beyond the curtains of the sky
Where they'll never know no pain.
We know they're gone from you, ma;
God will it so to be;
Just put your trust in him, ma;
Your babes you soon shall see.

This version published in the Carter paper states that it was composed by M. J. Williams in 1888. The version published by Jean Thomas varies in many ways and never uses the word ain't or ma.

The story has some twists. In 1870 Francis was living in Greenup County, Kentucky working as a seamstress with her children and an Elizabeth Williams age 67 born in East Virginia. The little girls vary in ages from 8 years old to 6 months. Husband Floyd is not in the household. However he reappears in 1880 in Lawrence County living with a younger wife Martha [Haney]. Thus she was not a widow in 1870. Floyd did not die until 20 June 1906.

Looking for M. J. Williams who composed the ballad in 1888, I found Montraville J. Williams, the son of Jefferson Brooks Williams living next door to John Q. A. Davis, a violin and dulcimer maker in 1880 in Olive Hill, Carter County, Kentucky. Williams is 22 years old working on his fathers farm but was certainly influenced by John Q. A. Davis and his music.

Kentucky Vital records show that Montraville J. [spelled a variety of ways] was born 24 February 1858 in Smokey Valley, Carter County to Jefferson B. and Mary Griffith Williams.

By 1900 Montraville Williams is living with a sister's family and is selling organs. Montraville appears to have never married and is found in 1920 living as a boarder in Eagle, Carter County with no occupation, just two years prior to the writing of the article in the Carter County newspaper.

I was able to to locate the obituary of "Mont J." Williams published 17 January 1929 in the Carter Herald. With a special thanks to James Powers at the Boyd County Library, I did not have to make the drive on this snowy day to obtain the obit. We discussed what a wonderful genealogy find the obituary was because it lists when each of the siblings pre-deceased Montraville. Sadly the article does not state the one thing I had hoped - which was his occupation and involvement with music and musical instruments. According to the obituary Montraville J. Williams died 12 January 1929 and was buried at Globe, Kentucky.

Anyone with further information on any other ballads that M. J. Williams may have compiled is encouraged to contact me.


clip art by: www.clker.com

Rowan County Signature Quilt

compiled by Teresa Martin Klaiber
December 2010

Quilt lovers know the historical value of textiles. Genealogists delight and cherish quilts when they find one signed by an ancestor. Today talented craft people can apply pictures to cloth creating quilt block images that will be handed down to newer generations.


In 1998 a cousin and I visited Mary Alice Calvert Jayne in Morehead, Rowan County, Kentucky. We sipped tea, sitting by a small lit fireplace while Mary Alice talked about family members, and the history of Rowan County. It was the kind of day that was just right for sitting and listening. As time grew shorter Mary Alice invited us to look at a quilt in her bedroom. With a smile she looked at me and said "It has the signature of your great great grandmother stitched on it."

My heart raced as she opened the door and pointed to the quilt hanging on the wall behind her bed.


Mary Alice said that the quilt was made by ladies of the Christian Church in Morehead as a fund raiser and hung for many years in the church. When the church no longer could use the quilt they asked Mary Alice if she would like to take it. Armed with a 35mm camera I took several snaps that day thinking that someday I would return and take down more of the names on the quilt.

Mary Alice Calvert Jayne was born 17 April 1912 in Morehead, Rowan County, Kentucky, the daughter of John B. Calvert and Sallie Fenton Hagaman. Sadly, before I even developed the film, Mary Alice died 11 November 1998 in her beloved Morehead.

Among the signatures that can be read on the photos in black are "Lizzie T. Martin." I have blogged about Elizabeth before. She was the wife of Henry Foster Martin, a Christian minister. Elizabeth died in 1936 in West Virginia and was brought back to Pine Hill Cemetery in Morehead for burial. Also embroidered in black are Bruce Calvert and J. M. Carey in the photos I took of small portions of the quilt.

Most of the signatures are predominately with red floss. Around the outer circle signed by Margaret Calvert are:

Faye Flannery
Dwight Pierce
Mae Blair
Eugene Calvert
Luther Jayne
Christine Williams
Dr. C. G. Nickell
Roy Caudill
Mr. J. B. Calvert
Cliff McClellan
Clara Robinson
Bob Strother
Kathryn Daniels
Mary Moore
Dr. Marsh
Flora Blair
Mason Jayne
Lottie Powers

Other names I can read in the photographs include:

Mrs. M. E. Carey
Elizabeth Maggard
George Denton
Mamie Blair
Henry Goldberg
Frank Karnip
Cora Bruce
Foster Goff
Patrick McKay
John Paul Nickell
Doris Penix
Thomas Paul
Mary Alice Calvert***
Robert S. Bishop
Charles Tatum
George M. Calvert
Tag Calvert

This is just a handful of the names on the quilt. Knowing some of the provenience of the quilt is most helpful. Since Mary Alice's name also appears I wonder if those signatures in black may not have been deceased when the quilt was created. Sadly Mary Alice was tiring and I hoped to answer further questions another day.

Having viewed other signature quilts, I note that these seem to be in similar hand where earlier signatures on quilts vary with handwriting. Maybe someone from Morehead can add more information on the quilt in the comment lines below my blog!

This particular quilt has now been handed down to niece Barbara Glenn Calvert Messer and is housed in Carter County, Kentucky. More research for another day.

Don't Drink The Water!

compiled by Teresa Martin Klaiber
November 2010

My email has been flooded since writing "Vomiting Lizards." Many told of family tales of other unusual items eaten. One suggested that Uncle Billy Taylor may have eaten lizard eggs swallowing them whole and then they hatched.

I must confess I have had a history with the lizards of Eastern Kentucky. Most of Kentucky has skinks and blue tailed fence lizards. They scamper unharmed, in the warmth of the sun, along our log home porch and flower beds.

Friends and family enjoy telling of the day I disrobed in front of my son because something was in my pants. Once I got over the panic and found out it was an innocent lizard I calmed enough to let him get back to nature. I am sure he was not happy either having traveled up my leg in unfamiliar terrain. For several years I received gifts of shirts and even socks with lizard motif.

None the less the story of Uncle Billy Taylor seemed very unusual to me. Then along with the other emails I heard from Archivist Steve Green. Steve and I have corresponded for several years on matters involving Eastern Kentucky history and genealogy. He has intrigued and stimulated me about more than one subject. So it should come as no surprise that he was able to supply me with pages of similar stories involving illness and even death by lizard.

With so many available historical newspapers online the task of coordinating articles has become much easier for researchers. Steve submitted seventeen articles between 1884 and 1910 with incidences from Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania and of course Kentucky.

Several of the articles indicated that drinking spring water was the cause of lizards in their stomachs. In that case the articles should have referenced salamanders also found in Eastern Kentucky. Salamanders are a joy to catch when you go "creekin" here in my beloved homeland.

The Stanford Semi-Weekly Interior Journal out of Central Kentucky reported, 20 November 1896, that Julia Parsons, a young girl of Union County, swallowed a lizard while drinking water from a spring. She died in horrible agony the following day.

The Richmond Climax reported August 15, 1900 from an article in the Mt. Sterling Gazette that Willie Farley, of Moreland, [Lincoln County] Kentucky, age six, coughed up a full grown lizard about seven inches in length. The boy was reported to have swallowed the lizard while drinking water and had been in his stomach for some time.

Salamanders are known to rejuvenate body parts after accidents -super regeneration- and scientists have been doing cell studies for years. Answers.com says they have poisonous enzymes in their fangs that can "eat away your insides. Nothing to crazy though." As urban legends go even Snoops.com has a link about eating salamanders.

The water in the well on our farm in Eastern Kentucky is crystal clear and icy cold. The well has served generations of family and friends. While we now have another pumped well and even utilize city water, there is nothing like plunging that stainless bucket down and pulling the water up link by link and drinking from the dipper.

Appalachian genealogy and history is unlike any other in our country and the area is flooded with folklore and old beliefs. The family swears that when Jesse James and his gang robbed the Bank of Huntington, Jesse stopped at our farm and drank from the well commenting that it was the "best water I ever tasted." Some family members declare it was "written up" in a Huntington paper. I have followed the supposed path of the gang members and can't envision they were even close to our farm let alone the well behind the mansion house. I have searched the Huntington [W.VA.] news articles without success. But it is a good story. And wouldn't it been most beneficial for the posse if Jesse had drank a lizard!